


ash.

by Chaos_Greymistchild



Category: Lessa (Webcomic)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:00:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28169655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaos_Greymistchild/pseuds/Chaos_Greymistchild
Summary: “It is the end.”
Relationships: Ares & Lessa (Lessa)
Kudos: 3





	ash.

Ares doesn’t smile.

He should be happy- his last obstacle to his goals removed, the being that showed him such the corruption and maliciousness of humans, gone.

Lessa, slumped before him, missing limbs from his prior attack, crimson blood staining his human vessel and black and gold robes, the wall behind him cracked almost to falling.

He lands, descends, touches his feet to the ground again, and grants his god-father the greatest honour.

Vapour billows around him in a non-existent wind, lifting his white, white hair – so reminiscent of his father, his mentor, his everything, when he was young and pure and unbreakable – in that same floating nothingness.

“Is that it?” he asks, voice melodic with the doubled echo characteristic of every deman.

Lessa doesn’t answer.

The silence is as deafening as it is muting, blanketing everything as a thick field of ash and dust, as he imagines an infinitely deep snowbank must do.

His hand, when he sees it as he reaches down to touch Lessa – his god, his father – is grey-skinned and clawed and he almost regrets, for a moment, the price to be paid for his crown of horns. Regrets shedding the form that Lessa had so loved, the humanity that Lessa had so treasured.

The regret is as transient as the dust on the wind, and flees as quickly.

He crouches, to reach Lessa’s kneeling form, so below him, for the first time in… so long. Centuries. His entire life.

He takes that unbreakable creature, shattered by his anger, his actions, in his hands, lifts that bowed chin with a gentle hand.

Lessa’s eyes are closed, grey lashes curved softly into his cheeks as if in sleep, or prayer. Blood trails from his lips down on side of his chin, and there, Ares nearly gives into the urge to wipe away the trail with a thumb, to do something with the delicate emotion about to splinter in his chest.

He holds it in, that fragile shapeless thing he cannot name and may shatter to shards that shred him from the inside out were he to act upon it.

Ares sighs, lets Lessa’s chin slip from his hand as he stands.

“It is the end.”

**Author's Note:**

> Had this sitting in a doc for a while and I don't think there's anything to add to it. It's just that one scene, told in Ares' POV and tinted with grief and regret and deep, deep sorrow.
> 
> *throws it out into the world*
> 
> (More humerous author's notes placed at the end against usual convention for more poignant reading experience)
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/greymistchild)


End file.
